


Lost And…Even More Lost

by MsGordo_Writings



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsGordo_Writings/pseuds/MsGordo_Writings
Summary: Dawn needs one thing to help her rescue Spike. The only thing is, the one thing she needs has no knowledge of who she is or what he was.  And Angel won’t help her. What’s a girl to do?
Relationships: Connor (AtS)/Dawn Summers
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are the writings of [ MsGordo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kipplemine/profile), posted here with the author's express permission in order to preserve them from Yahoo Groups. If I have missed any tags or warnings, please feel free to let me know.

**Title: Lost And…Even More Lost (1/?)**

**Author: Karen**

**Disclaimer: Not mine**

**Rating: R (I’m a bit hazy on the swearing guidelines so this is just to be safe.)**

**Spoilers: Set after season 7 for Buffy, season 4 for Angel.**

**Synopsis: Dawn needs one thing to help her rescue Spike. The only thing is, the one thing she needs has no knowledge of who she is or what he was. And Angel won’t help her. What’s a girl to do?**

**A/N: Ok, seeing as Freak has completely dried up on me I’m starting a short series focusing on Dawn and Connor and what could happen after the show ends. I still haven’t seen the finales and I’ve only got a sketchy idea of what could happen in this but I am so tired of trying to force Freak to move along and I just want a break now. So…here it is.**

**Dedications: To everyone who keeps up such an interest in Freak and keeps mailing me. Thank you very much for the support and enthusiasm.**

**Part 1.**

  
  


Dawn Summers put her hands on her hips and glared at Angel, vampire with a soul, formerly Angelus, Scourge of Europe, “What do you mean he’s not here?”

Angel steepled his hands beneath his chin and gave the teenager a cool look, “He’s not here. I sent him away.”

Dawn’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, “Did you kill him?”

“No!” Angel stood so suddenly his chair tipped back and crashed on the floor, “He’s my son, of course I haven’t killed him. What kind of person do you think I am?”

Dawn’s eyebrows lifted, “The kind of person that nailed my Betsy-Wetsy to the kitchen door when I was eleven.”

Angel looked guilty, “You know about that?”

“Uh-huh.” Dawn looked sceptically around the sun filled office of the Wolfram and Hart building and then pointedly at the vampire  _ not _ bursting into flames before her, “And I suppose that the evil forces you’ve been fighting for the last few years suddenly decided to give you all this and their collective knowledge and power out of the goodness of their withered, evil little hearts, huh?” She stabbed an accusing finger at him, “You got yourself a bunch of goats and Connor and had yourself a party, right?”

“ _ No _ !” Angel’s fists clenched warningly at his side, “You know I would never…”

Dawn fished a stake out of her back pocket and held it ready as Angel looked like he was coming around the desk at her, “I know  _ Angel _ never would.” Her other hand produced a crucifix, “ _ Angelus  _ on the other hand…You got any proof Willow anchored that soul, Peaches?”

“ _ What  _ did you call me?” Angel’s mouth fell open at the slender young girl facing off at him, “Who the hell do you think you are speaking to me like that?”

“I called you Peaches.” Dawn tossed her hair back, “And I’m the girl who’s going to tell her sister that you killed your kid if you don’t tell me where you stashed him.”

Angel took an unneeded breath and fought to bring his temper under control, “Won’t that be a bit difficult considering that no one apart from me, and now you, has any memory of Connor ever having existed?”

Dawn bit her lip uncertainly, “Good point.” She thought hard for a moment and then dropped the crucifix and pulled a water gun from her jacket pocket, “Then I’ll just have to take care of this myself.” She squeezed the trigger and a jet of water struck Angel on the chest and immediately began to hiss and smoke. The vampire yelled in pain and surprise and then ducked as Dawn fired again. Controlling the sudden urge she had to be violently sick and sink into a trembling heap, Dawn looked Angel dead in the eye and said flatly, “I need Connor, you are going to give him to me or I will torture you until you do.” 

Angel clutched his chest and stared at his young opponent in disbelief, “You’ll what?” He shook his head, “Scratch that, I don’t care. What do you need Connor for, what could possibly be so important that you show up here without Buffy to get him?”

Dawn lifted her chin and eyeballed the still smoking vampire, “Spike. He’s alive and I need Connor to help me get him back.” Now it was Dawn’s turn to look guilty, “And I ditched Buffy and the others outside Cleveland and doubled back. She doesn’t know I’m here.”

Angel felt his jaw drop again, “You ran away?”

Dawn flushed, “I’m nearly seventeen, it’s a Summers’ tradition. We send someone to Hell and then we run away to LA.” She flashed a quick grin, “Think of it as a rite of passage.”

Angel stared at her in sudden sympathy, “Dawn, what happened to Spike wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill him, he chose to do what he did.” He reached for the phone, “Let me call Buffy…” The sentence ended in a yelp as the water gun fired again, this time splashing over the phone handset.

“I don’t think so.” Dawn gestured to Angel to retake his seat and waited until he was seated again before continuing, “I’ve been having dreams, maybe visions, about Spike. I don’t know  _ how _ I know that he’s alive but I do. I tried to talk to Buffy and the others but with the hassle of contacting all the new Slayers and getting the Council up and running again, they didn’t want to listen to me.” Sadness flashed across her face for a moment before she finished, “Which is fine. I can, and will, do this on my own. Now, where is Connor?”

Angel shook his head, “Its not that simple. I don’t know how you remember that I had a son but you shouldn’t. He has a new life, a new family. He’s got no knowledge of where he came from. No one knows about him except for me.” His eyes reflected unbearable anguish; “It was the only thing I could do to make him happy.”

Dawn blinked, “What?” Whatever she had been expecting when she asked for Angel’s help in finding Connor, it wasn’t that. “What do you mean?”

Angel shrugged, “I was offered a chance at a new life for him and I took it. It was the best thing for him.”

Red lights went off behind Dawn’s eyes, “You  _ bastard _ …” Ignoring Angel’s look of astonishment at her total disregard for his pain she spat again, “You complete  _ bastard _ !” One black booted foot kicked the crucifix on the floor across the room in a moment of sheer rage, “How  _ dare  _ you? How dare you do that to someone?” Not satisfied with kicking the wooden cross, Dawn pulled back her hand and let fly with her stake, “You said he was alive, that you hadn’t killed him…”

Angel ducked the stake and shot to his feet again, “He is! Dawn, he has a family who love him, who…”

“ _ No he doesn’t! _ ” Dawn’s chest heaved as she fought for the words to express herself, “He doesn’t! They don’t know who he is.  _ He  _ doesn’t know who he is. How can they love him when they don’t know him? What gives you the right to take that away from him? Make him something he isn’t?” Dawn shook her head in disbelief, “You selfish piece of crap. He didn’t measure up and you got rid of him, you killed everything that made him Connor when you did that to him. How  _ could  _ you?” 

Angel staggered back in shock at the girl’s words, “No, that’s not how it was…”

“That’s  _ exactly  _ how it was.” Dawn’s voice was low with venom and hate, “It got too hard for you and you took the easy way out.”

Angel shook his head, “No…”

Dawn nodded insistently, “Yes. You did. That’s what you do, things get too hard and you walk away. You did it to Buffy, that was for her own good remember? You took her choices away from her too.” Dawn slapped a file from Angel’s desk in a flurry of paper and leaned in, “You killed your own son because you didn’t have the balls to try and make it work with him, you gave up.” She shook her head in disgust, “You’re pathetic.”

“You didn’t know him.” Angel’s face twisted in agony, “You don’t know what his life was like. I did what I had to do.”

“What  _ you _ had to do.” Dawn pulled back and said quietly, “It’s all about you isn’t it, Angel? What  _ you _ think is best. What about what Connor wanted? What he needed? Did you ever ask him what  _ he  _ wanted?”

“You never even met him.” Angel began to get angry, “What the hell do you know? You don’t know what he wanted, what he needed.” His slammed his hands down on the desk with a crash, “What do you care what I did to him?”

Dawn backed towards the door of the office, “I care because no one else is going to. No one else is going to give a damn that you killed a person because you couldn’t make them be what you wanted.” She stabbed a finger at Angel, “This isn’t over, soul-boy.”

She whirled and pulled open the office door as Angel reached for her, “Dawn, wait!” He shot round his desk as she disappeared into the hallway, “You’ve got it all wrong.” Ignoring the sick feeling in his stomach he ran to the door, “Connor’s happy, he’s alive. I didn’t kill him!” He caught sight of her white face as the elevator doors closed and then spun round as a voice came from behind him.

“That’s good.” Gunn eyed his friend curiously, “Connor’s alive and you didn’t kill him.” He waited a beat, “Who’s Connor?”

  
  


**End Part 1.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Lost And…Even More Lost? (2/?)**

**Author: Karen**

**Disclaimer: Not mine, not a one.**

**Rating: R (I’m a bit hazy on the swearing guidelines so this is just to be safe.)**

**Spoilers: Set after season 7 for Buffy, season 4 for Angel.**

**Synopsis: Dawn needs one thing to help her rescue Spike. The only thing is, the one thing she needs has no knowledge of who she is or what he was. And Angel won’t help her. What’s a girl to do?**

**Dedications: To all who keep mailing me about this fic, thanks for your interest and I’m sorry it took so long to update. As always, blame Freak.**

**Part 2.**

  
  


Dawn made it out of the Angel’s glass office block by the skin of her teeth, and the somewhat loosened teeth of an overly enthusiastic security guard, and plunged into the mid-day bustle of LA’s streets, determined to lose any trace that Angel might have sicced on her. She pushed blindly through the crowds of people, still shaking with anger over Connor’s fate and blinking back tears of despair now that she knew there was no hope of retrieving Spike from the mouth of hell.

It had been a month since they had won against the First and for the first few days the group of warriors had just concentrated on getting over their loses and healing their wounds. They had travelled by day in the old school bus and then when night fell had booked into faceless low rent motels on their way to Cleveland. It was on their first night in Cleveland that her first dream had happened. 

In the room she shared with Buffy, Dawn had woken from a deep sleep with the smell of burning flesh in her nostrils and the tortured screams of Spike ringing in her ears. She had stumbled from her sagging bed and vomited into the toilet in the adjoining bathroom before sinking to her knees and sobbing wretchedly on the floor until Buffy found her cold and stiff in the morning. Her sister had held her as she had told her of the dream and the anguish that Spike was going through and then Buffy had spent some time telling Dawn that Spike was dead and it was her own tortured imagination that was providing the images of his anguish and pain. Giles and Willow had been informed of the situation and all had agreed that Dawn’s residual guilt over not being able to say goodbye to the vampire before he died was constructing the nightmare landscapes of Dawn’s dream.

Dawn had tried to buy into that theory for the first couple of nights and then when Spike had become aware of her presence for the first time she began to realise that maybe it wasn’t that simple. The closeness she had shared with the vampire in the months after Buffy’s death had disappeared, thanks to mindless attack on Buffy and in the weeks and months leading up to the battle with the First there had simply been too much happening to enable Dawn to exchange more than a stilted ‘Hi.’ Or ‘Good Morning’ with the newly ensouled vampire. Plus, when Dawn really sat down and thought about Giles’ theory, if her subconscious was feeling guilty about Spike’s death then why wasn’t she seeing dead Anyas all over the place in her dreams? 

Dawn began to withdraw into herself and lose weight that she could ill afford to drop. She was lethargic and pale and spent her days waiting for night to fall and her next visit to Spike. The reality of the dreams, from the screams to the smell, became too much to ignore and she began to realise that there was a higher purpose to he nightly visits to Spike. The others tried to take her out of herself, but with a plethora of teenaged girls around them all looking for guidance and attention, Dawn soon found herself pushed to the sidelines once again and it was from there she began to research on possible ways to bring someone back from the mouth of hell.

Giles was delighted when Dawn began to show an interest once again in research, particularly when she stopped begging them to help her rescue Spike, and seemed not to notice that she seemed to spend at least fifty percent of her time on research that had nothing to do with whatever demon they happened to be fighting at the time. Once Dawn had made the decision to find out what was happening by herself, she found it somewhat easier to bear the dreams at night and was infected with new energy during the day. She was no longer looking so pale and worn and the weight she had lost slowly crept back on. Buffy, profoundly relieved that her sister seemed over whatever malady was affecting her, threw herself into training the other Slayers and re building the relationships with Xander and Willow that had been allowed to founder during the past couple of years. 

It was when Dawn and Andrew were alone one night at the large, ramshackle house that had been adopted as a temporary Slayer central that Dawn found what she was looking for. She had been skimming through the Kirtanya Codex when she noticed a reference to a being called the Destroyer. Dawn glanced up at Andrew who was busily sorting through the clothes that had just finished in the dryer and then back down at the book. Immensely strong and infused with the preternatural quickness of its demon parents it was, for all intents and purposes; human but, more importantly, one of its powers was the ability to track its prey anywhere. 

Dawn’s heart began to thump with hope and excitement as she read that it was possible for the Destroyer to track its prey across untold dimensions until it ran them to ground. As quietly as she could Dawn ripped the page from the centuries old book and told Andrew she was going to bed. For the first time in weeks she had a sense of anticipation when she laid her head on the pillow and could hardly wait to see the twisted, pain-racked being that Spike had become.

Spread-eagled across the flaming mouth that was the opening of the Hellmouth, Spike had, frankly, looked better. His body was held in a shaft of pure sunlight from the front, constantly roasting his flesh, and from behind indescribable monstrosities sliced and hit at him in an attempt to break the seal to the human world. The vampire’s face was twisted in a constant agony of pain and it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to remain even semi-coherent when Dawn came to him.

Ignoring the howls and screams that came from behind Spike, Dawn focused her eyes firmly on his face, “Spike? Spike, I’m here. Can you hear me?”

Spike threw back his head and screamed as a large blade suddenly exploded through the skin of his stomach and then twisted to open him from pubic bone to heart. Even though Dawn technically had no body in her dream she still managed to give the impression of panicked withdrawal as her screams matched Spike’s. A huge clawed hand pushed through Spike’s body, but was repulsed by the sunlight that bathed the vampire on the other side and as quickly as it had appeared the weapon, and its owner’s hand, disappeared. 

Spike’s head lolled limply to the side as he heaved dry sobs of pain and Dawn’s dream self drifted closer once more, “Spike? Spike, I’m here.” Dawn’s voice thickened with frustration and tears, “Spike, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to do…”

Spike’s head turned slowly until he faced directly in front of him and where he was best able to pinpoint the source of her voice, “’Bit?” He licked his cracked and bloody lips, “’Bit, told you not to come ‘ere no more, didn’t I?” A flash of the old Spike humour lit his dry and damaged eyes, “This ain’t no place for a little platelet like you, sweets. Go on now, be off with you.” His head slipped to the side once more, “Be a good girl…”

“Spike!” Dawn’s voice danced with frustration and panic as he seemed to lose consciousness, “Dammit Spike, stay with me. I think I’ve found a way to get you out of here.” There was no response from the stricken vampire, “SPIKE! Listen to me, you bastard!”

“Dawn?” Spike’s head lifted painfully once more, “Dawn?”

“Yes, yes its me!” Dawn’s voice was filled with relief and excitement as Spike stared around himself curiously.

Spike nodded, “I know.” He blinked reproachfully, “Don’t think you should be usin’ that kind of language though, ‘Bit.”

Fortunately for Spike, Dawn was currently without the use of her hands otherwise he would have got the frustrated slapping of a lifetime. As it was he was treated to an impressive monologue of all the swear words that Dawn had picked up in the course of her long association with him. When she finally finished Spike was open mouthed in astonishment and Dawn felt considerably better, taking a mental deep breath she said urgently, “Listen to me, I’ve found someone who can help me get you out of here. No one else believes me that you’re alive and I have to go get help. The Destroyer, ring any bells?”

Spike shook his head, “Not alive.” His head began to loll to the side again, “This is what I deserve. Best to leave me ‘Bit, Spike’s been a bad boy.”

“Oh for god’s sake, what are you, Angel?” Dawn mentally placed her hands on her hips, “Snap out of it!”

Spike’s eyes refocused on where he thought Dawn was, “There’s no need for that kind of talk, Nibblet.” It was hard to pull off affronted dignity when you’re naked, wracked with pain and stretched over a mouth of hell but somehow Spike managed it. “I went over this with Psycho Slayer, Angel’s as dull as a table lamp and we have  _ very  _ different colouring.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dawn could see over Spike’s shoulder and something with tentacles and wicked looking spike’s was coming up fast behind him, “Spike, The Destroyer, quickly!”

Spike bucked as the thing hit his back and his mouth opened in a scream as the flesh began to be stripped from his body. He writhed in his mystical bonds and his head thrashed from side to side as he tried to escape the agony, “No! Oh god, no!”

Dawn watched helplessly, “Spike, hang on.  _ Spike _ !”

“An-gel.” Spike forced the words out somehow, “Connor…Angel’s kid. Des…des…troy…”

“Angel has a son?  _ He’s  _ the Destroyer?” Dawn’s voice shook with emotion and confusion, “Spike?”

“Go!” The whisper was reed thin but the order was unmistakable, “ _ Go _ !”

“I’ll be back, I swear to god, I’ll be back.” Dawn forced her consciousness away from Spike and back into the now familiar route to her body. When she woke she lay for some minutes staring at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the others coming in from patrol downstairs. Dawn went over what Spike had told her, and especially over the revelation that Angel had a son, but she was deeply concerned that in his anguished delirium he was confusing events and people that he had known years, perhaps a century before. 

She spun onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow to muffle her sobs of despair and then she froze as a wisp of memory began to play at the edge of her mind. She lay still as the wisp became an insistent tug and then a full blown chorus of bells as she swore she could almost feel a hazy veil being lifted in her mind and the memory of Buffy’s stricken face announcing the arrival of Angel’s son over breakfast one morning to the stunned Scoobies came back to her. Dawn’s head came up at the speed of light and she stared blankly at the faded wallpaper inches from her nose, “Holy  _ crap _ …” Her mouth opened and shut in amazement as she assimilated that Angel, His Royal Broodiness, had a kid. Dawn scrambled round to kneel on her bed, hands fisting in excitement. Angel had a kid! A kid called the Destroyer. Dawn bounced in excitement and punched the air.  _ Yes _ !

Her excitement waned slightly the next morning when she realised that she apparently the only one on the face of the planet that remembered said kid’s existence, but after yet another afternoon hitting the books, Dawn managed to convince herself that some kind of big-ass mystical hush-up was going on and the only person who might be able to help her was Angel, currently brooding his ass off several hundred miles away. Aware that every second wasted was another second that Spike was being brutally tortured, Dawn followed Willow and Kennedy out on their regular patrol that night concealing in her weapons sack a couple of changes of clothes and the money she had stolen from various places around the house that day. She waited until the Slayer and the witch were busy annihilating a nest of vampires they had found, backed out of the graveyard they were in and then hailed the nearest taxi to the bus station. Which brought her to LA and on the run from a not-quite-evil-vampire-with-a-soul and with no idea how to find his magically hidden kid.

Dawn pushed past the people crowding the sidewalk and yelped suddenly as a hand came out of a nearby alley mouth and she was pulled from the street. A tall youth, no more than a couple of years older than herself smiled down at her. “Hey, you ok? You look a little upset.”

Dawn shoved herself back and squinted to try and see the face half hidden by shadows. “I’m fine.” She backed up another step cautiously. “If that’s any of your business.”

The boy stepped forward and flashed a smooth smile at Dawn. “Take it easy, I’m not gonna hurt you.” He shrugged easily. “It ain’t easy on the streets, I just figured you looked like you needed some help. I got a friend with a place to crash, no questions asked.”

Dawn tipped her head to one side in consideration. “Yeah?” She glanced towards the street and then back at the kid watching her with hungry eyes. “Boy, did you ever pick the wrong girl to hit on.” She reached under her jacket and produced a slim blade with a cold grin as the smile fell from the kid’s face. “And just so we’re clear, there’s gonna be a  _ lot _ of questions asked, the first of which being just how many desperate kids have you sold off to this ‘friend’ of yours and how much you made out of the deal.”

The boy held up one hand keeping his eyes on Dawn. “You don’t want to do that.” His other hand that had been hanging loosely at his side reached behind his back and he pulled out a knife double the size of Dawn’s. “You got no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Dawn bared her teeth. “Back atcha.” She flicked amused eyes at the kid’s knife. “You got any preternatural abilities or demon heritage you may or may not be concealing?” A confused silence was all the answer she needed. “Then your ass is toast. I’m armed, I’m desperate and I’m really, really pissed. Sucks to be you.” Without warning she lunged forward and a few short minutes later it was all over. Dawn kicked the groaning body at her feet. “Never mess with a Sunnydale Scooby.” She crouched down and pulled the lolling head on the floor up by its hair. “Now, about those questions…”

  
  


**End Part 2.**


End file.
